The US will support a global agreement that requires less plastic production
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The United States, one of the world’s biggest producers of plastic, will support a global agreement that calls for a reduction in the amount of new plastic produced each year in a major policy shift, a source close to US negotiators told Reuters on Wednesday.
The shift away from its previous calls to leave such decisions to individual countries puts the US in direct opposition to countries such as Saudi Arabia and China.
Those countries have argued that the hoped-for United Nations agreement, which negotiations are scheduled to conclude at a November conference in Busan, South Korea, should ignore production questions and focus on bottom-up approaches, such as encouraging recycling and changing packaging design.
Busan’s talks will take place after the US presidential election on November 5, when Vice President Kamala Harris is running against former president Donald Trump.
Trump has shunned international environmental agreements and pulled the US out of the UN Paris climate accord.
The top countries are ambitious
The policy change also puts the US in close cooperation with a group of so-called ambitious countries that include EU member states, South Korea, Canada, Rwanda and Peru and has called for a global plastic agreement to curb and reduce plastic production.
The group also directed a list of chemicals of environmental concern used in plastic production to be eliminated.
The US is now also supporting efforts to create a possible global list of chemicals that should be eliminated to avoid a “patchwork” of different national requirements, as well as setting global goals to identify what should be on the list of “plastic products to avoid” to eliminate, the source said.
The debate over whether the UN agreement should seek to reduce the amount of plastic produced pushed the last round of talks in Ottawa in April into overtime, when major plastic and petrochemical producers such as Saudi Arabia and China blocked further talks on production caps. arguing that. countries should focus on non-controversial topics, such as plastic waste management.
The EU and other groups have expressed concern that continued differences between countries over the scope of the agreement will make it difficult to close the talks in Busan.
They launched an effort called “Bridge to Busan” to keep the plastic production target “alive” in the text of the agreement at the Busan talks. The source did not say whether the US would support that effort.
The White House will inform stakeholders on Wednesday of its “ambitious” position change, the source said.
The changes come ahead of a meeting in Bangkok that coincides with ongoing treaty talks later this month and after the US last month set out new policies to tackle plastic pollution.
– Valerie Volcovici, Reuters
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